Sergei Stroitelev

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I feel like I am sitting in a black emotional hole

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I FEEL LIKE I AM SITTING IN A BLACK EMOTIONAL HOLE
Tbilisi, November 2022

The war which Russia started against Ukraine on the 24th of February 2022 forced a lot of Russian journalists and human right activists to leave the country due to repressions and the risk of being detained.
In Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia there is a special shelter where those people can live in physical safety trying to figure out what to do and where to go next.
The shelter was organized by the group of activists calling themselves Marem who previously were working in Chechnya and Dagestan protecting women's right. They made arrangements with a local businessman who allowed them to occupy one of his houses free of charge. That was a great relief as the rent in Georgia increased by 1100% from the beginning of the war and the most part of the political migrants left with no money at all.
The shelter is located on the outskirts of Tbilisi. It housed 23 people who have found out about opportunity to stay here through the networks of friends and secret telegram chats dedicated to the issues of political migration. All these people were persecuted in Russia for their journalistic or human rights activities. Most of them lost everything and cannot return back. They now live in limbo trying to find themselves in the course of these terrible events that should not have started.

As the residents of the shelter I also left Russia after the start of the war. I was working as an independent journalist there and it was unsafe for me stay in the country.
I spent 3 weeks in the shelter making photographs and talking to the people. During one of the conversations Nastya from Moscow told me - "I feel like I am sitting in a black emotional hole". This phrase had a big effect on me. I realized that my feelings were comlepetely identical. After the start of the war I felt constant sadness and guilt inside.

The present story not only displays what is going on in the shleter but also and most importantly visualizes collective mental state of the Russian political migrants who were forced to leave their homeland.

Alexander (22), Murmansk &q... duting my lifetime."

Alexander (22), Murmansk

"I have been working at the headquarters of Alexei Navalny (author's note – Russian politician and lawyer, famous for his critic of Putin and anticorruption investigations and is now political prisoner) in Murmansk, I was the deputy coordinator. After the arrest of Alexei, the headquarters were closed and the entire organization was recognized as extremist. A year later, lawsuits rained down on me. 4 lawsuits were from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the National Guard. They wanted about a million rubles from me for the unsanctioned rallies that I held in early 2021. After all, they worked there, dispersed protesters, and now they wanted payment for this, apparently from my wallet. As a result of these lawsuits, all my accounts were blocked and I had no means of subsistence. Also, the military prosecutor's office decided that I needed to join the army. I was notified in the Spring about that even before mobilization. I did not want to kill people and to participate in this bloody circus at all.
I told my ex-wife that I just didn't have any options left. And in order to survive, I have to leave. She reacted very negatively to this, she was simply out of politics and did not understand the intricacies of such cases. She urged me to hire a lawyer who would help to resolve everything, but in political cases this does not work, especially in wartime. Thank God, at least my parents supported me, because they knew where I worked. They remember 2018, when Putin was elected once again and when the police broke into our apartment to detain me, guarding me in the entrance.
I had a travel ban due to lawsuits, and I went to Tbilisi through Belarus. In May, this path was relevant. I took a book and a phone with me, I bought a laptop already here - with donations.
I felt that I was going for a long time, since such matters are not being resolved in a couple of months. At first there were panic, fear, a sense of loss, also derealization. I did not understand that all this was happening to me, as if I was watching myself from the side. But all this quickly passed, when I already arrived in Tbilisi, I realized that I was not the only one. I resumed my political and anti-war activities, but already remotely. I am involved in a number of projects. It seems to me that, being abroad, it is strange not to do this, because people in Russia are even afraid to make posts on social networks, but here we can do it freely.
Now it’s just empty inside and it hurts for Russia. I understand that it might happen that the country will never get well. At least I won't evidence it duting my lifetime."

Diary notes of the characters.

Anatoly (20), Moscow "...s difficult to plan."

Anatoly (20), Moscow

"In Moscow, I worked for OVD-info (author's note - Russian non-state human rights media project aimed at combating political persecution recognized as a foreign agent). - I conducted the cases of political prisoners, defended them in the court. I remember how on the last day of work in court, I looked through the cases of those who were detained at the recent anti-war rallies, and in each case there was a summons. In general, this activity was the reason for the departure. I just got threatened on the phone. They were anonymous. Moreover, my mother was very worried about me and because of the mobilization, as they rowed everyone indiscriminately.
We gathered a group of like-minded people at my house and developed a route. First we fly to Volgograd, and from there we are taken to the border with Kazakhstan. Friends drove us, so we did not pay a penny. Russian border guards talked with me longer than with my friends - they do not have much political experience. It became scary at some point, as always when interacting with police officers of the Russian Federation. But in the end they let me out, threw my passport through the window and looked at with disgust. We stayed in Aktau for two weeks, and then we crossed the border with Georgia without any special incidents through the Vishnevka checkpoint.
Everything turned upside down. It has become a little easier in Georgia due to the fact that the lack of communication has disappeared, especially in this shelter. The understanding that we all left for a long time was coming slowly, probably for several years. It is a pity that this happened, because my friends and I did everything for the good and tried very hard to make Russia a little more legal state. I'm scared. In Russia, after all I had work and precise plan of the activities. And here I need to think what to do next and in what direction to move. If I go to Europe, I need English. I have to learn from scratch. I have never used it and it seems to me that it might become a barrier. I think at the moment I mostly live for today, because in the current political situation it is difficult to plan."

Diary notes of the characters.

Nastya (23), Moscow "I...electricity in Kyiv."

Nastya (23), Moscow

"In Russia, I lived by activism and art. During the war it was hard to paint. The agenda changed, it was impossible to make something distant and pretend that you are out of time. I tried to comprehend the military experience, but the pictures came out too straightforward. Moreover, many galleries have closed due to the financial situation.
As far as activism is concerned, before the war I went to all political court hearings at least three times a week. I also organized meetings in order to write letters to political prisoners. I think that no one should be imprisoned for words and position, this is not a serious crime for which huge terms should be given. There are a lot of ordinary, non-media people, about whom no one knows at all, and they spend years in prisons for posts on social networks or for pickets. They are bullied in prisons by the personnel, because they understand that they do not have any support from society.
The situation at the front was getting worse, and in Summer I decided to organize my action. I stood in front of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior with a poster on which was written "The 6th commandment, do not kill." This action became one of the faces of the anti-war movement in Russia.
Shortly after that, I was visited by the Criminal Investigation Department. They started banging on the door as soon as I got home. Apparently standing and waiting for me near my flat. They entered the apartment, began to tell my mother what a criminal I was, threatened with prison, called me a whore. From then on, they came every two weeks, just to scare us.
After the announcement of the mobilization, things got really bad. My friends and I went to protests. I remember how my friend was dragged into a paddy wagon and beaten with a baton along the way, but she was signing during that. We were hiding with some unfamiliar guy in the bushes in a small park from five cops looking for us with flashlights. We lay all dirty and soaked and tried to keep the branches from crunching under us. I held his hand. If he had been detained, then they would definitely have given him a summons.
I'm very tired of this. My psyche could no longer withstand such stress. My mother was very worried about me all this time. She supported my position, but dissuaded me from actions and from bad words addressed to the authorities. In the end, she let me go, because she understood that this was the only right decision. I flew to Grozny, from there to Vladikavkaz, and then on foot I reached the Georgian border at the Verkhniy Lars checkpoint, where it was just hell. I lost consciousness three times when I was standing in the queue. I lost track of time - maybe for several days, without water and food. I remember some dude gave me an apple.
Now I feel like I'm in sitting in a black emotional hole. I want to cry all the time. I am physically hurt by what is happening. Recently, I was supposed to have an interview with one Ukrainian company for remote work, but it was canceled due to the fact that there is no electricity in Kyiv."

Artem (42), Tver "I we...er, is losing in it."

Artem (42), Tver

"I went to Georgia on vacation and there I learned that I was included in the list of foreign agents even before the war, it happened in September 2021, when the Ministry of Justice rolled out the largest list of 22 people, which included the regional coordinators of the Golos organization and several other opposition journalists. I lived in Tver, and there they believed that Vazhenkov (author's note – Artem's surname) was behind any opposition movement or initiative. The federal service came to me for any reason and after every demostration, even with which I had nothing to do.
Pro-government idiots once wrote on the front door to my apartment - “get out the scum”, threats began to come. I decided not to come back to Russia as I had the prospect of a criminal case. Well, if I were arrested in Russia, there would be no resonance. Politicians like Alexey Navalny or Ilya Yashin are super media personalities, their arrest is a kind of gesture for the whole world. If they arrest me, then maybe someone will write somewhere, maybe a dozen people will make posts on Facebook and Telegram, and I will be left alone in the cell with gruel and everyone will forget me the day after tomorrow. Moreover, the status of a foreign agent for an ordinary person is an unbearable burden, unlike the same hyped names. You will run into a huge fine for non-compliance with the conditions and no one will help you with anything.
In addition to my personal problems with the Russian state, I saw that the situation as a whole was getting worse, about a month before the war I told all my friends that Russia would attack Ukraine, I was just sure of it. In general, there is nothing new in this, if we recall the same words of Nemtsov (author's note - an opposition politician who was killed for his plotical activities and the critic of Putin, he was also predicting the war) from 2014. Well, February 24 came and we all were fucked up.
I've been living in a shelter for about 9 months now, conditions don't bother me, I'm used to living on suitcases. While there is no private place, well, what to do. During this time, I managed to go to Poland and volunteer there in a camp for the Ukrainian refugees. At first I did not want to say that I am from Russia. To the question “where are you from?”, I answered that I would not answer this or said with a smile “I am a man of the world”. After this, a stone fell from my shoulders and the shame for citizenship became less ardent.
In the near future I am leaving to Germany, this country has issued me a humanitarian visa with benefits. That's all I know, to be honest, I'm very anxious about this move - I don't know what awaits me there. New life, I'm alone. To be honest, I plan to return to Russia when it is safe for me and when this country has some kind of future. Now it is not possible - Russia has unleashed a terrible war and, moreover, is losing in it."